Three Irish swimmers could not improve their personal-best times at the Boiler-Make-It Last Chance Meet at Purdue on Saturday. The meet stood as their final chance to qualify for the national championships on March 15.
Sophomore Kelly Ryan andfreshmen Emma ReaneyandBridget Casey participated in four events combined at Saturday's meet in West Lafayette, Ind.
The meet was more of an individual competition for time rather than a team competition as only a few individuals from various midwestern teams, including Louisville, Northwestern and Purdue,participated.
Ryan competed in the 100-yard backstroke event and earned a B-cut time after finishing in 53.83 seconds. This marked her third-best time for the event on the season as she finished in 53.32 at the Big East championships on Feb 15.
Reaney attempted to improve her season-best times in two events, the 100-yard fly and 200-yard backstroke. In the 100-yard fly, she finished in 56.35 in the preliminaries, which was 0.7 seconds behind her 55.65 finish at Michigan State on Jan. 21. Reaney also swam the 200-yard backstroke (2:05.60) but was unable to knock time off her previous best.
While neither time met the NCAA B-cut criteria, the two events do not rank among Reaney's best. She leads the team with top times in the 100 and 200-yard breaststroke and 200 and 400-yard individual medley.
Casey swam the 200-yard fly in 1:59.80 for a B-cut time. However, she also swam the event faster at the conference championships in 1:59.22.
The Irish now wait for the list of championship qualifying participants to be announced in early March. The championships will take place from March 15-17 at Auburn University in Auburn, Ala.